Must Be the Heat
by wencharella
Summary: A heatwave brings intense, confusing emotions. Soon there will be a storm.   Erik reaches out to Lance, much to Pietro's jealousy. A story about fathers, feelings and friction.
1. Chapter 1

AN: 'lo all. This is an idea I've been toying with for a while, being at a loss as to how to carry on with Discoveries. Sorry it's such a big chunk of story – I'm too lazy to put it into chapters! Bad Wench.

It was three o' clock in the afternoon, about the time when the mid-July sun scorched everything it touched. Heat hazes danced above the dry, dusty ground, reminding you that if you had any sense, you would stay indoors with the curtains closed and a fully-functioning air-conditioning system.

Or drive down to get some ice, if you were unfortunate enough to live in a filthy, crumbling Victorian mansion that retained heat as well as it held stench.

There was one fatal flaw to this plan. If the house was derelict and Victorian, then the mode of transport was ailing and at least twenty years outdated. It had chosen today of all days to give up the ghost, sputtering lazily on starting and emitting a noxious brown smoke.

So now Lance was standing in the roasting heat, peering into the bonnet of his car, hardly able to see for the sweat that kept dripping into his eyes. He had taken off his tee-shirt and was using it to mop his forehead, taut muscles in his broad back straining as he bent over to examine the thingy-tube that monitored the stuff-level.

He knew nothing about cars, and was especially clueless where this shit-heap Jeep was concerned.

_"I hate everything about you,"_ he sang into the bonnet. The Ugly Kid Joe song was the Brotherhood anthem, a monument to their all-inclusive loathing of anything and everything. It was as trashy and uncool as they were. Plus, failing all intelligent explanations, the song contained the word 'sex.'

Fred was pretty skilled when it came to fixing cars and Pietro was good at diagnosing faults, but his fellow Bros had deserted the house to spend the day loitering in the air-conditioned mall. He longed for the cool, clean air of the mall rather than the choking fumes he was trying not to inhale.

Looking into the intricate machinery gave no clue towards what needed to be fixed. The smoke seemed to be coming from everywhere. He waved his screwdriver around vaguely. It was too hot to think logically.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he cried to the vehicle, kicking the wheel angrily. "Huh? What's wrong with you?"

Of course, it didn't reply. He rocked back on his heels, hot and frustrated. There was a man coming up the drive – an older man whose silver hair reflected the sun almost offensively. He was tall and upright, elegant in his movements. He wore a white linen shirt and khaki slacks, and he dangled a panama hat in his left hand.

It took a moment to work out who this man was. Lance watched him stroll up to the front door and ring the bell. The man peered at his reflection in the glass panel, sweeping the front of his hair back in a manner identical to Pietro.

Which meant, of course, that this was Pietro's father. Lance had only seen flashes of him before – a helmeted, caped crusader in red. He had never considered that Magneto was a real man who wore normal clothes.

Shit. Why was Magneto here, why now, when Lance was surrounded by metal tools? Feeling helpless, Lance pulled on his sweat-drenched top. If he had to face this terrible man, he would feel better doing it with clothes on.

It was at this point that the man turned round, spotting him. He almost glided over to Lance, fixing him with a cold steely glare.

"Are you part of the Brotherhood?"

There was something so deeply intimidating about the presence of this man that Lance merely nodded.

"And you are..?" the man prompted. Lance's stomach performed a series of somersaults.

"Lance, sir. Avalanche."

"Ah," said the man, sounding mildly pleased. "Very pleased to meet you, Lance."

He held out a large, smooth hand which Lance took, sincerely hoping that his powers wouldn't activate to shake Magneto off his shiny designer shoe-clad feet.

"Never mind the formalities, you may call me Erik. Can you tell me, Lance, is Pietro at home?"

Erik's impeccable manners did little to settle Lance's nerves. It was always the worst villains who had the best manners. Lance could imagine him standing over the body of a victim freshly impaled by a scaffolding tube and saying, "Thank you very much. You died very nicely."

And this man was looking for Pietro! Torn between whether to disclose Pietro's whereabouts or whether to snarl at him to mind his own business, Lance just shrugged.

"Sorry, he went out a few hours ago. I don't know where."

A dark looked passed over Erik's face, his eyes closing to reveal the same thick black lashes as Pietro. Lance could sense disappointment and perhaps the tiniest hint of understanding that Pietro would rather eat his own burnt-out running shoe than see his father.

Don't shoot the messenger, Lance begged Erik silently.

"What a shame," said Erik coolly, shading his eyes from the sun to get a good look at the Brotherhood house. Lance watched him take in every loose roof tile, every cracked window held together by duct tape, the yellow fungus growing up the drainpipe, Todd's 'THE BROTHERHOOD FUCKED YOUR MOM' graffiti….

This did not bode well. Still, fixing the Jeep might kill him before Erik did. Trying nonchalance, Lance picked up a spanner and loosely tinkered with some bolts.

Erik made a small hum of displeasure, but said nothing. This reminded Lance of his English teacher, who would glance over her flabby shouder at his work, tut and walk away. This was a thousand times worse than being told he was stupid – similarly, Erik's silent reaction spoke volumes.

"I can pass on a message to Pietro, if you want…" Lance tailed off hopelessly. He didn't want to make it sound like he was trying to get rid of Magneto (or Erik, not that he would ever call him anything but sir) but of course, he was.

Erik flashed his straight white teeth. "I'd prefer to give it to my son myself, if you don't mind. However, he is proving impossible to catch."

"You can't catch him, he's Quicksilver!" blurted Lance, before ducking under the bonnet to hide his embarrassment.

"Yes," Erik simply said, and Lance could feel him peering into the exposed machinery of the Jeep. "Old girl giving you trouble, is she?"

His tone softened as if he was trying to be pleasant. There was still a touch of stiff formality in his manner of speaking that made it impossible to relax around him.

"Trouble's one word for it."

Lance stepped aside warily to let him have a look. After all, if it was a metal-related problem, maybe Erik would come in handy.

"Christ!" gasped Erik, taking a crisp white handkerchief from his pocket and mopping his face as he drew away.

"It's a mess, right?" agreed Lance. "I dunno where to begin."

Erik squinted up at Lance, wrinkles running from the corner of his eyes to his temples. "Changed the oil?"

"First thing I did."

"Checked the coolant level?"

"Yeah."

"Tested it for leaks? Checked the air-filter?"

For a while, Erik fired off solutions to which Lance answered that he had already tried them. He was surprised that this man, who was so ruthless in battle, and who was also Pietro's loathed father, was bothering to speak to him let alone help him.

Finally, Erik stood back from the Jeep, tilting his head to one side thoughtfully. "Would you mind if I tried something?"

"Go ahead," Lance said. It was difficult to mask his excitement, knowing what the great manipulator of metal was capable of. Maybe he could remould the Jeep into a Bugatti Veyron. "Please."

Erik waved an elegant hand, signalling for Lance to stand well back. Then Lance could only gawp at the overwhelming display of coolness as the man laid his palms flat over the bonnet, and without any apparent effort, made everything slide into place with a pleasing metallic clunk. It sounded as though the nuts and bolts were tightening, and immediately, the smoke stopped.

"Whoa," was all Lance could offer. In an awestruck daze, he shook Erik's hand as he mumbled incoherent thanks that featured the word 'awesome' at least three times.

"What did you just do?" he finally articulated, staring blankly from the bonnet to the amused looking Erik.

"I don't quite know," admitted Erik, sweeping his hair off his face again. "But it always seems to work with broken machinery. See? Deadly and handy."

His eyes glittered devilishly and he almost smiled. Lance was taken aback by this – it was a typical supervillain joke, but Erik's delivery was ironic as if he didn't want to be a badass metal mother.

Looking at the man who was not grey but silver, not old but experienced, Lance began to question his assumptions. This didn't seem to be the man on the battlefield who levitated like a red and purple phantom, bringing metallic doom to those who opposed him. Neither did it seem to be the evil, abusive father that Pietro raged against. Against his best judgement, Lance could feel admiration fizzing inside him, and mixed with the fear that remained; this produced a sick reverence that left Lance thinking about him for hours afterwards.

"How about you show me your mutant ability? It's only fair in exchange for my display," Erik said, gazing proudly at Lance. Lance felt the world squeeze in around them as if the only thing that existed was the unbearable pressure of those severe grey eyes.

"Uh…" He fumbled for a moment, wiping his palms repeatedly on his too-tight too-warm jeans. He knew that Erik was still looking at him. What were his powers? How did he access them? Think, Alvers! "Uh… I can make the ground shake. Well, more than that, I can break it and bring things down. Like an avalanche, which is, uh, why I'm called Avalanche I guess."

Erik nodded, and spread his palms in a polite gesture as if to say 'go ahead.' He took a seat in the shade of a large oak tree and peered up expectantly

Lance felt suddenly naked. Embarrassed, exposed, and grossly inferior. He flexed and unflexed his hand, hoping that his power wouldn't fail him now. The overwhelming fear of being unable to perform or impress and the threat of complete emasculation was scarily similar to how he had felt before sex.

'Come on, you bitch,' he growled to himself, building the familiar tingle in his fingers. Erik's eyes were like a magnifying glass held to the sun, and he was the poor ant getting fried. 'COME ON, YOU LITTLE PUSSY!'

The frustration seemed to fuel it – almost immediately, Lance sent a low, deep rumble through the ground, causing the earth to crack and shift, throwing up a rich and heavy fragrance. It felt so good to do this that it was hard to stop, although for the sake of the Earth, he always had to. Then he closed his eyes and relaxed his arms to halt the quake, breathing deeply.

"If I don't stop, I'll create a canyon," he apologised, sinking into a sitting position next to Erik.

"Indeed," Erik replied, nodding his head slowly as he admired the trail of broken ground. "You are very powerful."

"Maybe," muttered Lance sullenly, unable to hide the dark mood that always reared its ugly head when his power was mentioned.

Erik seized upon this, boring another steely glare into him. "Are you unhappy with being a mutant, Lance?

This absolutely demanded a response.

"I don't mind being a mutant. It's just… I wish I wasn't so destructive. There's always got to be a limit, I always have to stop myself. I look at Pietro, who can run and run and run without any consequences, and I wish that I was like that."

"There are consequences," Erik interrupted, a frown forming a deep crease between his eyebrows. But just before Lance could ask what these consequences were, the frown was replaced by an almost manic energy. "Now Lance, you mustn't resent your gift. Do you know what you can do? You can manipulate the very earth. Yes, it is destructive, but it's a matter of control. Look who you're talking to – if anybody understands about destructive powers, it is me. And didn't I just use mine for good? Trust yourself with your gift; believe in its potential, and remember that you are the master of it. Can you do that?"

Enthralled, Lance nodded. This was one skilled orator – Erik's passion made Lance believe every word.

"Good. Tell me, Lance, how does it feel to use your power?"

"It feels… awesome. Like every bad feeling I've ever had is escaping into the ground, like I'm letting all the pressure inside me out. And I can see the destruction I cause and I feel like God. I'm fucking with nature because I'm angry, and I get this feeling that if I wanted to, I could end the world. This planet we're standing on – if I shook it hard enough, I could break open the core and every living bastard would perish…" He tailed off, terrified of what he had just said. His heart pounded and tears pricked his eyes – he had never vocalised these feelings, never thought to explore them. "S-sorry. For swearing."

"Fuelled by rage," Erik said clinically, as if they still talking about the Jeep. "That is not a bad thing, Lance. Don't be ashamed, you can achieve greatness."

Lance felt that if Erik told him that he could sprout pink fairy wings and fly, he would believe it. Now he was certain that Pietro, not to mention the rest of the world, was wrong about this man. Erik had fixed his car. Erik had made him feel things that he had never felt before, and Erik had made him feel worthy. That was something nobody else had ever bothered to do.

"It is getting late," announced Erik, standing in one fluid movement. For a man of his age, he was clearly extremely fit. "I am going to have to go, but before I do, I'd like to offer you some help. I can give you guidance on how to master your gift. I could also help you to hone it; perhaps even give you some training. Would you be interested in that?"

Lance almost clapped his hands with glee. He had seen how cool the X-Geek training suite was – Magneto's had to be about ten times cooler. He probably had real guns and everything. "Would I! I mean… Yeah, that'd be great, sir. Thank you."

"Excellent," said Erik in a very business-like manner, handing Lance a card with his contact details.

Lance blinked at the card, wondering if any other supervillains gave out business cards. Then he remembered something Pietro said about his father using cards to hook and recruit mutants. He wondered if he should be repulsed at this like Pietro was, but all he felt was flattery.

"Thank you," he said again, shaking Erik's hand. He had to work hard to hide the extremely dorky grin that was bubbling up inside him. In one of those giddy mental images one gets in moments of extreme excitement, he pictured himself skipping around the house with that business card, singing 'I've got a golden ticket!' Then, worried that he may be humming the tune aloud, he gave Erik a formal little nod.

Erik tilted his hat like an old school movie hero, and started up the driveway. Heart still thudding, Lance gazed from the fixed Jeep to the contact card to the retreating figure. He felt weird, slightly faint, but that was surely the heat.

…

When Pietro finally returned, he was drenched in speed-induced sweat. Why do I do this to myself? He wondered as he stood on the landing, bent against Lance's bedroom door to catch his breath. The door was slightly ajar and a tiny slither of Lance's crumpled bed was visible. The impish desire to sneak inside that empty room healed Pietro instantly, and before he knew what he was doing, he was on the other side of that door.

Lance's room was, of course, a massive smelly anti-climax. Socks strewn everywhere, empty coke cans on the floor, the guitar lying on the scruffy tartan-sheeted bed as if it was having a nap… He had posters of babes and cars and rockstars – all very nondescript and unrevealing of his personality. Pietro sighed, stepping gingerly to avoid hooking stray pairs of boxers onto his feet. Lance's desk was just as much of a disappointment, holding Pisa-esque piles of half-done homework and yellowing textbooks. There was a wallet – empty, unfortunately – and several bottlecaps of foreign beers that may or may not have suggested sentimental value.

"You boring bastard," Pietro muttered. He turned to leave, but a business card caught his eye. Why would anybody want to do business with Lance 'predictably ordinary' Alvers?

On closer inspection, the card produced a horrible feel in Pietro's stomach, as if a troop of slugs were squelching their way through his digestive system. Oh yes, he had seen these before. It pained him to admit this, but he always secretly coveted one. No, he felt sick. He needed to put the thing down and leave, or better, take it with him and destroy it in the hope that Lance would forget all about the card's dishonest promise. And he hoped to all deities that Lance had not already contacted 'Erik Lensherr – Mutant Mentor'….

Mentor. What a disgusting nerve that man had. Mentors were positive forces. Mentors cared. Why Lance, anyway? What was so special about him that Erik would rather give him a card than his own fucking son?

Pietro glared at the card, hoping that it might ignite if he glared at it hard enough. He felt angry and hurt and jealous and betrayed. He didn't even know who he was upset with. His mind worked too fast to make sense of it.

Although Pietro's mind worked fast, when it was absorbed in one thing, it registered little else. It was for this reason that Lance found Pietro standing in the middle of his bedroom, scowling at a card that he had picked up in blatant snooping.

Taken aback, Lance paused by the door. "Um, hello."

Pietro glanced from the offending card to the offending boy, transferring the scowl in an instant. Lance found it beyond odd that Pietro should be angry at being caught snooping in a room that wasn't his, but Pietro's reactions were rarely sensible.

"What the fuck, Pietro?"

Like a hungry crocodile, Pietro's eyes narrowed to slits so that only a flicker could be seen. "What's this?" he asked, pointing at the card.

"Why are you in my room?"

"What's this?"

"It's mine, and why the hell are you in my room?"

"Your door was open," Pietro deadpanned, either ignoring or failing to register that he was in the wrong. He was talking in that tight, calm, dangerously controlled manner he used when he was severely pissed off. "Talk me through this calling card, Lance."

Lance swallowed a few times. "I don't know man; it's a card, contact details."

Pietro rolled his eyes and waved the card impatiently. "Don't be a douche, Lance, I know exactly what it is. When did he give it to you?"

"Back off," commanded Lance, removing the card from Pietro with effortless power. "Prissy little ass. If you must know, your dad dropped by this afternoon looking for you."

At this, Pietro's jaw retreated and his mouth turned inwards as if he was sucking a lemon pickled in bleach. "What did the old bastard want?"

"Didn't say," shrugged Lance. "He waited a while for you, helped to fix the Jeep and then we talked a little about powers."

"Oh, powers!" Pietro exclaimed, spitting out the 'p' sound. "Tell me you didn't buy the 'treasure your gift' spiel. Let me guess, he told you he'd help you. You think he can fix you like he fixed your Jeep. Well, here's what sucks, Lance, he's not going to help you. You know what those cards are really for? Recruitment. Recruitment into his army of stupid brainwashed mutants who, by the way, are just there to take the bullets for him. You'd better not be stupid enough to fall for this shit."

Wow. He really hates that guy, thought Lance, wondering why the words felt like daggers. Pietro was almost certainly wrong. Before Lance had met Erik, he believed that he was a callous evil monster who rejected all of Pietro's efforts to build bridges. Now he perceived Pietro to be the cold one, avoiding his own father and poisoning others against him. Erik had been so nice and charming, and Pietro was nothing but a selfish creep.

"You know, it's not really your business whether I call him or not," said Lance.

Pietro prickled as expected. "Of course it's my goddamn business, he's my father."

"Your father when it suits you," Lance muttered. Why was he so annoyed?

"Meaning what?" Pietro whispered murderously

"Meaning," growled Lance, eyes flashing darkly, "that you spend your life bitching and whining about the guy, you avoid his calls and pretend that he doesn't exist except as some excuse for all your fuck-ups. But if somebody even tries to get close to him, you get all jealous and act like you know best when really, you haven't got a clue. You've got no interest in him apart from where it concerns you. Seriously, do you know how fucking lucky you are to have a father?"

Ah. That was the reason. Lance breathed deeply, acknowledging the overwhelming rage of a wound still raw from his childhood. Must be why he couldn't stop thinking about Erik, the dad he'd never had.

Pietro laughed softly, clapping Lance on the shoulder in a sardonic 'well done.' "You know, that analysis wasn't half bad, Alvers. I liked the bit about him being an excuse for my fuck-ups, that was… interesting," he purred, pulling an arrogant smirk. "And if you're so desperate to have a father, go ahead, take mine. I won't be there to pick up the pieces when he drops you from a great height."

"What is your problem?" exploded Lance, using every inch of his self-control not to pick Pietro up and shake all the irritating little jerk out of him. "Before I met him, I believed everything you said. But all I saw was a nice, intelligent guy who wanted to help."

"Turning on the charm," scoffed Pietro.

"No," insisted Lance. "And you know what? When I told him that you weren't there, he looked hurt. He said that he couldn't track you down anymore. Maybe, if you gave him a chance, he'd actually be a father to you."

In an almost uncanny resemblance to the way Erik had looked, Pietro's eyes dropped and he sucked in his cheeks pensively. This wasn't all his fault. And anyway, why would his father want to build bridges just to burn them down again before he could cross?

As if on cue, Pietro's phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, mumbled something about speak of the devil and answered peevishly.

"Pietro speaking."

Lance backed into his bed and sat down, watching the constant nuances in Pietro's expression.

"Sorry, I was at the mall. I hear you met Lance."

It was funny how cold and distant Pietro sounded when his face was doing emotional aerobics.

"Today? What's so special about June the sixteenth?"

"It's July," Lance announced from the opposite end of the room. Obviously hearing the same thing over the phone, Pietro's eyes practically rolled out of his skull and his mouth contorted in a series of silent swear words.

'What's wrong?' mouthed Lance.

"No… I didn't know, I got the date wrong, I'm sorry, father. Look, if I'd realised, you know I'd be the first person to -"

But the line had gone dead. Pietro brought his hands to his hair, clenching handfuls. "Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Shit," he said, as if the word was a sudden revelation.

"What did you do?" asked Lance to the ceiling, reclining with his hands behind his head. This was just proving his theory right – Pietro was a useless son. "Or not do?"

"I got the date wrong!" moaned Pietro, pacing with all the unspent energy of a caged kangaroo. "By an entire month. Shit."

This was not unusual for Pietro. Life passed so quickly for him that he found calendars and clocks irrelevant, except for the benefit of ordinary slow folk.

"I'd better go," he mumbled to himself, sweeping back the hair that he had made stand on end with his panicked clutching.

"What? Wait. Where?" Lance started to get up, but Pietro had all but zoomed down the stairs in a silvery blur.

What a strange day. Confused, Lance shook his head and lay back, closing his eyes. The face that floated into mind was Erik's.

…

In ten minutes, Pietro was at the stark red door of his father's unnervingly immaculate 1930s house. The house was associated with cold, hard glares and being told what a disappointment he was and this ridiculous annual ritual where they had to pretend that they were family.

Erik opened the door, wearing the same creaseless linen shirt. He looked at his son, expressionless.

"Hello. I really did get the date wrong; I'm so sorry, I never -"

"You're losing control," Erik said coolly. Pietro's heart sank. His father had always thought that his super-speed would ruin him. "Well, come in."

With leaden legs, Pietro followed his father wordlessly down a hallway of endless magnolia wall. There were no paintings, and the floor was a dull stone tile which gave a minimalist, echoey feel to the place.

They turned into the garden. It was just starting to get dark and the neat rows of flowers were giving off an intense, almost sickly fragrance. At the end of the garden, Erik had set up a small, rectangular table. Draped over it was a silky black cloth, and he had made a display of a tall white lily in a plain glass vase flanked by two tall candles.

Pietro wrung his hands. His eyes had skipped the display completely to fall immediately on the framed photograph at the corner of the table. The dark haired woman in the picture looked back at him with calm innocence. Her hair fell around her face in soft waves; she was sweetly pretty and had the look of somebody who'd never experienced any evil in her life. Unfortunately this was not true.

He didn't remember her as well as he wanted to. She died when he was six, held at gunpoint in a bank robbery. Everything went a bit wrong after that. He often thought how different his life would have been if she'd lived, how different his father would be if she'd lived.

Erik was looking at her too, brow creased and mouth tight. Too many innocent people in his life had been killed – it was if they were being punished for their sweetness and goodness. This woman – Magda, his wife, their mother – did not know how to hurt people. She had soothed all his rage with love, but her death irreparably damaged him. He was unable to keep hold of the children, indeed he didn't want to. Wanda's rage was inconsolable and dangerous, and at eight, he had to admit her to a mental hospital. Then he put Pietro, her twin, into care. Without the children, he could focus on making the world better, safer for people like him. He was consumed by ugly, terrible anger that still burned at the pit of his stomach.

The routine was the same as ever. Erik handed Pietro a box of matches, and he lit the candle on the right. Then Erik took the matches and lit the candle on the left. Pietro had never asked if the second candle was for Wanda, but he always thought of her as he stared into the flickering flames.

"Magda, we remember you," Erik said in Polish. "We always shall."

"Always in my thoughts, Mama," murmured Pietro, also in Polish.

They drank a small cup of wine and said a prayer although neither of them were particularly religious. Erik recounted the story of her death; every year he told Pietro a little bit more and it sickened him. Pietro understood the anger and the grudge against the human race, but how could his father give up on his own children?

"Not so hot now," announced Erik in the overly transparent tone that dysfunctional parents use when trying to be civil. He gestured for Pietro to sit next to him on a low wooden bench, where he perched regally with a straight back. Pietro found himself obeying automatically.

"I hope you stayed out of the sun today, Pietro."

Pietro pouted and shrugged at this pathetic attempt to enquire about his welfare.

"You will dehydrate very quickly in this heat."

"That's okay, I drink plenty of beer," quipped Pietro, quite forgetting whose company he was in. When he was met with a stern look that could have melted the Grand Canyon, he smiled in a way that he hoped would be mildly angelic.

"Honestly, father, I'm fine. I know how to look after myself."

Erik ground his teeth in response. "Now I have seen where you live, I'm not entirely sure you can."

"It's a sh -" Here, Pietro managed to catch himself before he uttered 'shitheap' in front of his father. "… Shocking mess, isn't it? And it was bad before four adolescent boys moved in. Anyway, you can hardly blame me for where I live – blame Mystique."

"I may have to," muttered Erik, and the thought of Bitchy Blue getting her ass kicked secretly delighted Pietro.

"So…" Pietro glanced around the garden, knowing full well that he couldn't leave yet. "You met Lance today. Are you going to put him in your super-team?" (He could barely disguise the venom.)

Noting Pietro's jealousy, Erik chose to tread carefully. "I wouldn't say that. Lance is a very able mutant, but his power is lacks sophistication. I merely offered to help him - the same offer I have made to you many times," he added with a meaningful nod in Pietro's direction.

That veiled offer. Pietro had refused it because he knew deep down that he would get sucked in by his father. He would get the relationship with his dad that he'd always wanted, and in return Erik would get a brainwashed soldier. It was simple; he wouldn't get close enough to Erik to get hurt just as he wouldn't cut up a carrot with a meat cleaver in case he chopped off a finger.

"Maybe one day," Pietro said, finding that answer preferable to 'go fuck yourself.' "Are you honestly not planning to recruit Lance?"

'Honestly' being the operative word.

Erik frowned at his son. "I hardly think so, Pietro. He seems like a very well-rounded young man -"

He was interrupted by a snort of derision from Pietro. "You are joking. Lance was thrown out of Anger Management at school for punching the therapist!"

"Well, that's one of the reasons I'd like to help him," Erik said evenly. "Perhaps he is not academic, but I see a lot of potential in him."

Potential! "So you are working on him! You wouldn't recruit him now because he's not ready. You've got designs on him and you're going to take him away from the Brotherhood, where he belongs!"

Erik was unwillingly transported back to a conversation with an eight year old Pietro – "you're going to take her away from her family, where she belongs!" He closed his eyes for a moment, wondering…

Pietro was surprised by his own words. He had thought this was all about wanting to be in Lance's position, but he'd come to an unwelcome revelation. He was afraid of losing Lance, and the mere thought of it made his heart thud painfully against his chest.

"Pietro, where is all this coming from? You're overexcited; I told you the sun would affect you. Come inside and drink some iced water."

And like an obedient little sheep, Pietro went. Perhaps Erik was right; he did feel a bit strange. He'd have to mull it over later, when of course, he'd be thinking more sensibly.

…

Somehow, Erik had predicted Pietro's illness. Either that or he had put something in the wine. Pietro couldn't think straight, his skin was sticky-clammy and he couldn't stop shivering although he was positively roasting inside. He had woken up in a bed – at first he thought it was his childhood bed and that he was a child as his father looked so enormous looming over him with a thermometer.

"What? Why am I -?"

His voice was pathetic. It sounded like it was floating in from another dimension.

"You fainted," Erik said matter-of-factly. "I suspect you have sunstroke."

"Sunstroke," Pietro moaned drowsily. "Is this hospital?"

"No, no, you are still at my house. Although the bed probably does feel like a paltry hospital bed – I'm afraid my guest room is rather basic."

"Your house," parroted Pietro. Suddenly an emotion pierced his heart. "Lance!"

Erik's dark shape overwhelmed him and something cold and wet was dabbed over his face. "Yes, I thought of phoning him. Tell me the number, if you can."

Reeling off the familiar number was like swimming through an ocean of treacle. Erik had to prompt him several times, frequently dabbing that stupid wet towel across his brow even though the towel wasn't cold anymore.

The dark shape went away – the high-pitched beeping of a dialling tone stabbed needles into Pietro's eyes. He was vaguely aware that his father was actually being a dad by looking after him, but his spinning mind confused the thought by believing that Erik was his first foster parent, a fat businessman who spoiled him but barely said a word to him. So he must be nine, or was he back in care, or did he have nine fathers who didn't care? Who was sitting inside his head playing his eyeballs like gongs?

He closed his eyes, drifting.

…

When Erik phoned, Lance almost dropped the phone into the garbage disposal with excitement. Something was going to happen here – something dangerously thrilling.

He was worried about descending into awkward jabber over the phone, but Erik gave him no chance to speak.

"Lance? It's Erik. I need you to come over straightaway, here's my address -"

Whoa. That was more than Lance was expecting. His hand shook with jittery anticipation as he took down the address.

"I don't want to alarm you," Erik was saying. "But Pietro was taken ill this evening."

Taken ill. There was no phrase more frightening to Lance. That was what the Principal had said, years ago, when his mother had been rushed to hospital after an overdose and died completely undignified on a trolley in a corridor.

"God, like, seriously ill?"

"He'll need close monitoring, but it looks like he has sunstroke and fatigue."

Lance breathed again.

"I would suggest, Lance, that until he is better, he stays with me. I have good medical supplies and I feel that this environment would be more…" Clean. "…Healing."

Well, Lance had no problem with that. With a phobia of all bodily fluids and the tolerance of firework on a short fuse, he would make a terrible nurse. Todd's dreadful hygiene made him unsuitable for the role, and while Freddie had the patience and the caring attitude, he lacked any sort of common sense.

"Can I see you – er, him?" Lance blurted, hoping that Erik would interpret that slip as nervous concern for his friend."

"Yes, of course, that is why I gave you the address," replied Erik, sounding puzzled. "I did also ask you to come over straightaway, with some of Pietro's things, if you don't mind."

Crap. Lance sounded like an idiot now.

"Like, clothes and a toothbrush and shit – uh, stuff?"

"Yes," Erik sounded impatient now. "As soon as possible, please."

"I'll be right over," mumbled Lance, defeated.

"Thank you, Lance."

…

Lance closed the door of his newly fixed Jeep, drinking in the sight of Erik's house. It was not the elaborate gothic Disney villain's castle he'd imagined, although it was clear that Erik's financial position was definitely 'comfortable.'

He rang the doorbell, awkwardly swinging the gym bag that contained a random assortment of Pietro's things. Erik's tall, graceful silhouette appeared behind the glass panel and he opened the door, taking the bag from Lance without a word.

Lance followed him inside, noticing nothing but a pleasant herbal scent. The place had a serene emptiness – it was like a hospital should feel without the bustle and horror and drama.

"I do appreciate you coming," Erik said politely. "Can I fetch you a drink, Lance?"

Brandy would probably be the best option – Lance's insides were dancing an incessant nervous jig.

"No, thank you. I, uh, I packed all the things I could think of, but if I missed anything out just call me and I'll bring it over."

"That's very kind of you," said Erik, who had paused at the foot of the stairs and gave Lance a dazzling smile. The word handsome had probably been invented for Erik, although he was so much more than that – he could be powerful, he could be terrifying, he could be sly, he could be spectacular and so much more.

"If you'd like to stay a little longer, we could start working on your self-control," Erik said, and Lance initially spluttered with horrified shock before he realised that Erik was, in fact, talking about his control over his mutation.

"That'd be awesome," answered Lance, who was beginning to feel increasingly sillier in Erik's magnificent presence. "Can I see Pietro now?"

Erik nodded. "Of course. I was just going up there myself."

Lance followed him up the stairs, wishing that he could walk with such confidence. Erik moved his long limbs like he owned every inch of them; it was clearly that age had brought him happiness in his own skin. Nobody Lance's age had that, particularly not losers in serious need of a haircut who had the fashion sense of a chimpanzee with a penchant for Bon Jovi.

They came into a small room consisting of a pine single bed, a small chest of drawers and a circular mirror on the wall. In the bed was Pietro, who was feverishly trying at once to pull the covers over himself and to throw them off.

Erik held a finger up, telling Lance to wait a moment. He approached the bed softly and crouched by it, speaking in a foreign language. To Lance's surprise, he pulled a stethoscope from his pocket, Pietro obediently offered his bare chest and Erik listened, chewing on his lips in concentration.

He put the stethoscope away, mumbled something else foreign and crossed to a notepad on top of the chest of drawers where he wrote something down.

"Are you a doctor?" asked Lance, whose opinion of Erik was rising tenfold.

"Me? No," Erik said with the lid of a ballpoint pen in his mouth as he wrote. He closed the pad, clicked the lid back on the pen, and rocked back on his heels thoughtfully. "Pietro's mutation can cause his body to overwork itself – therefore, when he is unwell, monitoring his heart-rate is essential. Normally, his heart beats at twenty times the rate of ours but it is currently beating at twenty-five times the usual rate."

"Twenty-five!" announced Pietro with delirious abandon. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Lance smiled.

Erik's stethoscope and his notes and the gentle tone he used when addressing his sick son were almost certainly testimonies to the fact that he was a good person. If he really didn't care about Pietro, would he have put him to bed and offered to nurse him through his illness?

With a little more heaviness in his gait, Erik moved towards the door. "Excuse me; I need to make some calls."

And then Lance was alone with a crazy sick person. He approached with caution as if Pietro was a ticking bomb that he needed to dismantle.

"Hey, dork."

He hazarded a glance at Pietro, who was usually mortified to have even one hair out of place. In his illness, his sweaty hair stuck in clumps to his face, his cheeks had turned almost comically red, and his eyes had the glazed appearance of a dead trout.

"Lance," he rasped. "Hey, Lance. Lance, I need to tell you something," he said, suddenly jerking upright and staring manically ahead. "I'm not sick. I'm not, I'm not. Get me out of here, I'm a prisoner."

"Ri-ight." Concerned that overexcitement might make Pietro's super-heart explode (why had Erik told him that?) Lance gently pushed him back down. A wave of nausea washed over Lance at the scorching, slimy feel of Pietro's skin. "You are sick, man. And you're not going to get better if you don't stay here. Your dad is looking after you really well -"

"He's making me ill so he can keep me here!" insisted Pietro, practically cross-eyed with fervour.

Lance pulled the covers back over Pietro. "Don't talk shit"

Partly because his brain could not form one coherent thought, and partly because he always listened to Lance, Pietro mumbled, "Okay."

Despite thinking that Pietro was possibly the world's most irritating person, Lance had to admit this was rather cute.

"Know what else you should do?" asked Lance with a rare tenderness in his voice. "Go to sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up."

"…. Okay."

Immediately, Pietro's eyes closed and his head lolled on the pillow. Lance watched him for a moment, supposing that actually, Pietro was just a kid really. So was he. They should have somebody to care for them when they were sick.

"Lance… Love you…"

Lance raised an eyebrow. "Sure you do."

Delirium could be hilarious sometimes.

…

When Lance came downstairs, Erik called him from the garden where he was taking apart his makeshift altar.

"How's the patient?"

"Talking nonsense, but what's new. He'll be okay, won't he?"

Erik paused, his nose in a lily. "Theoretically, yes. It is only sunstroke."

Lance frowned, leaning against the fence. "What d'you mean, theoretically?"

"Pietro's health is not predictable," Erik almost snapped, snatching up the extinguished candles.

The photo still stood, and Lance gazed at it. He understood from the lilies and candles that the lady was dead. This was the fuck-up that Pietro had made with the dates and the reason that Erik had been looking for him.

"Sorry," Lance said automatically, feeling that he was intruding on something sacred.

"My wife," Erik nodded at the picture, white hair bouncing as he did so. "Pietro's mother. It was a long time ago, but we still honour her memory."

It had never even occurred to Lance that Pietro had a mother. It was as if he was a mini-clone of Magneto, and that was that. Pietro had never mentioned her, but then, Lance had never mentioned his mother either. Did Pietro feel the same, did he miss her, and did he long for a mother's tenderness?

"My mom died too," Lance uttered dreamily, staring deep into the woman's eyes.

"I see," Erik responded with the calm detachment of a psychiatrist. "It is a terrible thing to lose somebody so important to you."

"She killed herself."

"Magda was shot dead in a bank robbery." Again, there was no sympathy or acknowledgement of Lance's feelings.

"Sorry," Lance echoed. Perhaps it wasn't appropriate, but he felt dejected. Erik had brushed aside his dead mother – anybody else would have said something, anything to acknowledge the suffering.

Erik surveyed Lance's face without emotion. "I was right about you, then. This is the epicentre of your rage, Lance. Embrace it. Become it."

Lance cringed inside. "I.. Uh.. I really don't know if I want to use my mom that way..."

"Nobody's using anybody, Lance. In fact, you are purifying the memory of her by diffusing all of this ugly hatred elsewhere. All I'm trying to teach you is to channel the anger and pain that you feel towards your power."

Once again, Erik's articulation was flowing through Lance like wine. He wasn't sure what Erik was saying, but he wanted him to keep talking. "Channel?"

Erik put a strong hand between Lance's shoulder blades. "Come inside, I'll make coffee, and we'll discuss it further."

He kept his hand there as they walked. Around that hand Lance felt a liquid warmth– he liked to be led.

…

It was late when Lance finally arrived back home at the Brotherhood's casa de crap. He headed immediately for the couch, and in one swift movement he had thrown off his shirt and pounced, bare-chested, over the back of it. His landing, although far from graceful, threw him into a comfortable sprawled position.

"You break that couch, you buy a new one, dumbass," snarled Todd, who was sitting at the table poring over an essay that he had to write by tomorrow or face permanent exclusion for having failed to hand in a single piece of work ever.

"Got your period again?" retorted Lance, idly flicking through the television channels. It was too early for horror movies and porn, but too late for goofy comedy. This was the hour of fatally boring TV dramas.

Todd balled up a piece of paper (the seventeenth piece, to be precise) and launched it at Lance's head. "Didn't you go to pick up Pietro?"

"Too sick," shrugged Lance. "Staying at his father's."

There was a predictable horrified silence. "You left him with Magneto?"

Lance yawned. Todd gawped at Lance, unable to believe that his team-mate wasn't at all concerned that Pietro was in the hands of a big crazy maniac.

"Have you ever spoken to Magneto, Todd?"

"Hell, no!" the boy replied, shaking his head firmly as if the very idea was offensive.

"Well," began Lance, becoming puffed-up with an ill-founded duty to protect this man he had only just met. "His name is Erik. He lives in a normal redbrick house, not Dracula's castle. He's got better manners than asswipes like you could ever dream of. And from what I can see, he cares about people. He certainly cares Pietro, who'd have us believe that his father drop-kicked him into the streets on his own. I saw them together, Todd, and he was looking after Pietro like a real dad, caring for him better than we could."

Todd looked at Lance like he was an alien. "Dude's got you brainwashed," he sang under his breath.

"No," insisted Lance. "He's okay, and he -" Lance stopped in his tracks. He didn't want to tell Todd about his wonderful session with Erik or the help that he was getting. That was special to him, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"You are acting strange, man. Seriously, you're freakin' me out, yo. Why do you care so much about this guy anyway?"

Care? "I don't care," bristled Lance defensively. "I'm just telling you that Pietro will be fine at his place. Besides, can you really complain about having Maximoff out of your hair?"

A cloud of dust flew into the air as Todd snapped one book shut and opened another. "Can't disagree there. So how sick was he? Was he whining like a little pussy and telling you what outfit to pick out for his funeral?"

Todd was referring to a bout of tonsillitis that Pietro had where everybody knew just how ill he was and how he thought he was on his deathbed. Both boys snickered at the memory.

Despite this, the word 'funeral' triggered a serious response in Lance's mind. He thought of Erik's face as he recorded Pietro's heartbeat.

"He's pretty bad, actually," Lance admitted. Being a boy, it was important to counter this with humour. "So bad that he didn't even realise his hair looked like shit. Seriously, man, you seen Night of the Living Dead? He was rocking the zombie look."

"No way!" cackled Todd. "You should've taken a picture – about time we had some good blackmail material, yo."

Lance smiled conspiratorially. "That's not all I've got… He was delirious, saying weird shit about being poisoned and stuff. And then, out of nowhere, when I'm leaving – get this, he says -" Lance raised the pitch of his voice to a cruel simper. "- 'Love you, Lance.'"

"WHAT?" Todd sprang off his chair and rolled on the floor with laughter, clutching his sides. "Aw man, that's embarrassing. Too fucking funny, yo, I'm gonna puke if I don't stop laughing. Oh. Oh god. Fuck, yo, I mean of all the people to say it to…"

Shaking his hair out of his face, Lance queried, "What do you mean?"

"Well, I can believe that Pietro's into guys, no problem. But the idea that he might be into you? Shit, Lance, you've gotta be the least gay person ever."

"Yeah! Yeah, I am," Lance replied quickly. If Todd was convinced, then surely he could convince himself. So he admired Erik and had enjoyed spending time with him today and was really excited about their next meeting. That was all quite innocent. And when he'd looked at Erik's full bottom lip this evening and considered how his kiss would feel, he was probably just confused. Delirious, perhaps. Maybe he had sunstroke too.

'Don't talk shit,' he'd told Pietro. Well, now he needed to follow his own advice and not think shit.

He zoned back in to hear Todd wittering on about how he was counting on Pietro to write his essay for him. "Maybe you can help me write it. Do you know anything about denial, Lance?"

Lance didn't miss a beat. "Not a thing."


	2. Chapter 2

After Lance had gone, Erik went to his study to make some notes. He pulled his stiff frame into a high-backed desk chair, pondering whether coffee would be a good idea at this time of night. No, probably not.

The gentle glow from the desk lamp made him too drowsy, so he flicked on the main light and stared straight into the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling.

He found a piece of lined paper and began to record rough observations about Lance. Sometimes he wondered why he didn't just become a shrink. The more mutants he worked with, the more he noticed the rich interplay between emotional control and physical power.

As soon as he had met Lance, it was obvious that Lance had next to no emotional awareness. He was almost offensively awkward, he struggled to articulate answers, and his social skills existed purely of picking up emotional cues from conversation and mimicking them. Lance was very susceptible; he was probably too open if anything. When he had brought up his mother's suicide, alarm bells rang. This was a kid who would die for acceptance and attention, but he didn't know how to ask for it. He looked at Erik with irritating reverence, considering that they had only just met.

'Will have to tread carefully,' Erik wrote in his compact slanting hand. Such was the way in every aspect of life.

Yet he wanted to help Lance – the challenge was too irresistible. If he didn't help Lance to manage his ability and curb his anger, who would?

Yes, there was a nagging doubt that he was reaching out to Lance to alleviate his own guilt over being a poor father. It was all too easy to play Dad to Lance, who was more than willing to step into the son role. They had discussed Lance's background this evening, and he hadn't known his real father, except by the names that his mother called him. He had grown up with a father in prison for drug-dealing, attempted robbery and grievous bodily harm. Erik had a perverse desire to show Lance some sensitive, guided fathering. But why not Pietro?

Pietro resisted. There was too much hurt in that relationship, too much to heal.

All Erik could do was hope that Pietro would view him differently after this. He had not physically cared for his child in years. Sick as it was, he had been hoping for an opportunity like this. For one thing, it gave him the chance to monitor Pietro's health and test his worst hypotheses. He hoped that they would bond, and that Pietro would see that he did care in his own bumbling emotionally-constipated way. Then there was the fact that he could play the father role he had almost forgotten. Holding a cup of water to his adolescent child's lips took him right back to those horrendous first days when the newborn Pietro had to be bottle-fed.

He pictured that tiny, runty little thing in his arms now. Somehow, Wanda had taken most of the nutrients in the womb and she thrived as a wailing, rapidly growing baby with beautiful black hair. Pietro, on the other hand, had skin so transparent that he looked almost blue. He was bald, save for a perfectly vertical white tuft in the middle of his scalp. The abnormal whiteness of his hair was the only reason that Erik fought for him to live. It marked him out as a mutant long before any powers would emerge.

So he would stay awake all night trying to make that baby strong. Wrapped in several blankets with just a plaintive face staring up at him. He would cradle the blanketed bundle, but only to give it the body heat it needed. He had no real feelings of love at that stage; he was just obsessed with the idea of a mutant heir.

Almost immediately, Erik had noticed the heartbeat. Alarmed, he had raced to a mutant doctor who confirmed that Pietro's body was remarkably different from the average. When Pietro's blood was tested, the white blood cells were discovered to work far more efficiently at fighting infection. His heart and lungs worked at unbelievable speeds, reflexes kicked in way before the foot was pricked, and the pinprick disappeared with practically instant healing. The doctor believed that Pietro's body could heal itself up to ten times quicker. That was how he had stayed alive in the womb when he should have failed. Erik stared down at the child in awe – what potential this boy had!

About a week in, when he was giving the baby a bottle of super-reinforced formula, the dark lids fluttered and a pair of almost cobalt blue eyes fixed on his. Erik had never forgotten the look in those eyes – even now, it chilled him to the bone. It was a hard, accusatory glare as if the child was _demanding_ love.

After that, he tried to feel tender towards the boy. He felt it once or twice in the sleepy warmth of the baby as they drowsed together, but most of the time his attempts at affection were false. To this day, he wasn't sure if he loved -

"Now, stop this," he murmured to himself, massaging the bridge of his nose. He was losing his focus.

The anniversary of Magda's death always made him think about the children. Wanda had been a charming child; bright, talkative and doting on her father. Erik could barely remember her face or the smell of her tangled black curls anymore, and he wondered whether she would remember him. And god, if she did, how could she forgive a father who put her away in an asylum? He couldn't bear to think about her; it was just another injustice the world had dealt him.

To distract himself, he read over his notes. In conclusion, he thought he had mentioned the word 'father' too much.

…

It took a couple of days for Pietro's temperature (and state of mind) to return to normal. Despite insisting that his he was fine, when he attempted a proud march out of bed, his legs refused to hold him up and he wobbled helplessly on the spot like Bambi attempting to stand on jelly.

"You're still weak," Erik had snapped, guiding him effortlessly back into bed.

If there was one thing in the world that Pietro truly hated, it was being vulnerable. He couldn't stand displaying weakness in front of his father, who he was pretty sure already considered him a pathetic pansy anyway.

"Really, I'm fine," he bristled, moving to get up again. One icy glare from Erik stopped him in his tracks.

"You are unbelievably stupid sometimes."

"Good old Polish bluntness," Pietro responded, throwing his father a half-smirk. He aimed to defuse the harsh remark, but the silence that followed only accentuated it.

Now that he was getting better, Pietro was painfully aware of the glaring differences between himself and his father. There wasn't enough to converse about, and any attempt at a joke fell apart. Erik was very perfunctory; he busied himself with the stethoscope and pills and soup and spoke to Pietro with a distanced calm that was becoming more and more irritating. Jeez, would it kill the man to lighten up?

Although Pietro was still bitter about Erik's training agreement with Lance, he had begun to see that he could use it to his advantage. It meant that Lance could visit, and while he was sick, Lance had to give him his undivided attention. For Pietro, being around somebody his own age was so important, especially when Erik was not only considerably older but also an absolute killjoy. With Lance, Pietro didn't have to tone down the fruitiness or watch his mouth or even say thank you (in fact, it was Brotherhood etiquette to be as rude to each other as humanly possible.)

So at seven thirty in the evening, when a familiar voice called, "Hey, titface!" through the door, Pietro's already juddering heart leapt.

In strolled Lance with his long-limbed gait, looking, Pietro thought, deliciously worn. His black tee-shirt clung to his broad chest with sweat and his long hair had been swept away from his face, revealing proud cheekbones.

"Any reason why you're perspiring like a racehorse?" Pietro enquired, arching an eyebrow. Wondering how he looked at that precise moment, he hoped that he still had that wild feverish glow –Lance was sure to find him desperately attractive.

Lance fell into a chair with a pleasing thump. "Boxing," he said, ignoring the hoot of derision from Pietro. "Apparently that's a more positive way to deal with aggression than pounding nerds at school."

Pietro made a mental note to think about Lance's 'pounding' later.

"You seem better," said Lance.

"I'm climbing the walls, Alvers. So fucking bored. I've read every book I can find. I've even done all the homework that's been sent to me – no, I've actually looked forward to it. Why the hell aren't I getting better? I never get sick. Rargh, I just want to go home."

"That sucks, bro. But it's nice to see you're less crazy, anyhow."

"Explain what you mean by crazy," growled Pietro. He refused to believe that he had acted in any way out of character, remembering nothing of his stark delirium.

"I mean totally ape-shit crazy, bro. You thought your dad was holding you hostage."

"He is," Pietro interrupted with a disapproving sniff.

Ignoring him, Lance went on. "No, man, you also said some totally fucked up things, like how you…" Lance's voice trailed off, as if he had thought twice about disclosing such information.

"How I?" prompted Pietro.

"Nothing. Hey, do you know what Freddy did last night? He put noodles on a pizza. Who the fuck does that?!"

"Don't try to change the subject, your attempts are pitiful. Lance," Pietro fixed him with a piercing stare. "What did I say that you don't want to tell me? You can't dangle juicy info in front of me then snatch it away like that. Unless winding me up about what I did when I was indisposed is your idea of a joke, in which case, let me be the first to tell you, you are way too stupid to pull that off. So stop stalling and either admit you made it up or deliver the goods."

Lance glared at him from under his dark brows, eyes glowing amber in the dim light. "Don't call me stupid and expect me to tell you, ball-sac. But since you decided to be a dick about the whole thing, I don't mind telling you as it's gonna make you sick with embarrassment."

"Already sick, so hit me," Pietro said boredly, swatting the air with impatience.

"You want to know? Fine. But don't deny it, because I was there, and I don't exactly like it being true myself. Okay… When you were off your head with fever and drugs, you said... You said… Awkward… You said you loved me."

Evidently awaiting a reaction, Lance drew back and lifted the bottom of his tee-shirt to mop his face. This was a golden opportunity to admire Lance's exposed stomach with the enticing trail of dark hair leading down from the belly button, but Pietro merely glanced.

"I said that, did I?"

"What, so it's no big deal?"

"No, should it be?"

"No. I just thought that, being as neurotic as you are, it'd freak you out."

Somewhere at the bottom of Pietro's ribcage, he began to feel a heavy sense of deflation. Lance clearly felt nothing from the experience; so much so that he found if amusing. And as it was, he was almost glad that his sickness had given him the boldness to express the feelings he had ignored for too long. But what a cruel, stark reality if his first rejection was to be from Big Stupid Alvers!

"I think it freaks you out more," muttered Pietro. When he got upset, he had a tendency to drop his voice and enunciation so much that he was almost incomprehensible.

"C'm'on man, what's it got to do with me? You said it," protested Lance, with an ominous frown forming between his brows.

Idiot. Pietro tried not to look directly at him, but at the frown line instead. "If it doesn't bother you, why bring it up? Do you want me to sit here and laugh it off so you can feel less weird about the whole thing?"

"Well, yeah. Because… Look… I know guys say it to each other, like, "I love you, bro," and that's totally cool with me, but the way you said it –"

Pietro jerked upright defensively, bringing on a massive head-rush. Fighting through the dizziness, and attempting to glare through the haze of multi-coloured spots, he interrupted. "Don't you dare get all homophobic on me."

Lance's eyes grew large and puppy-like. "Who's getting homophobic? Let me finish. I don't really like the fact that those words were said to me by a guy –"

"And you're trying to say you're not homophobic?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up! God! Let. Me. Finish." Lance looked like he was using all of the control Erik had taught him not to punch a sick person. "I don't like the fact that those words were said to me by a guy… namely you, when you were delirious… because actually, that was the first time in my life anybody had ever said that they loved me."

This left an awkward silence, during which Lance bit his lip and stared down at his knees, picking distractedly at the loose threads on his jeans. Pietro sank back into his pillow, absorbing Lance's words. Now he didn't know what to do or say. If Lance had been offended by gay connotations, it would have been fun trying to turn him. If he had been appalled by the notion that Pietro loved him, then it would have made an excellent mission trying to woo him. However, Lance had just laid an enormous wad of issues on the table, and Pietro would not play with problems.

"So, you're not mad that I said it, but that I said it when I probably didn't mean it?"

Lance nodded, letting an extremely large thread fall to the floor. It seemed to fall in slow motion, twirling and dancing in the air before it soundlessly hit the carpet.

"What if I did?"

The major risk in saying this almost made Pietro throw up. Or perhaps it was the dizziness. His heart was beginning to pound with all the power of a stampede.

"What if you did?" echoed Lance, and his eyes suddenly looked molten, dewy. And then they began to circle each other, down and down, as if they were being flushed down a drain, and all the colour was being sucked out until nothing existed anymore.

…

"Is… Is he okay?" fretted Lance, as Erik hunched over his unconscious son.

"I don't know," Erik finally concluded. His face was sucked in so tight with tension that he looked like a skull. "He should be better by now. Perhaps I should call a mutant doctor, I don't know."

"Shall I do it?" offered Lance, who was just as keen to get out of there as he was to help Erik.

Erik sat down on Pietro's bed, making a bridge with his hands and letting his forehead rest upon it. "I don't know. Yes, I suppose."

Lance wanted to help Erik, but he didn't know how. Trust Maximoff to turn on the drama and put his father through hell.

Erik muttered something about a number on the noticeboard for a Doctor Marvin. Lance obediently left, feeling sick. As he went down the stairs, he was aware of each thunk that his feet made, hoping that this might wake Pietro. Lance felt guilty. Why did he have to bring up that stupid love stuff? It was pretty common knowledge that you shouldn't stress a sick person. Now look what had happened.

He dialled the phone and, performing like a robot, requested a visit from Doctor Marvin. His eyes fell upon Erik's notepad, which had been left by the phone. He noticed Erik's handwriting–it was very small and it looked like each letter was leaning on the next one. Lance's mother once told him that his father had never learnt to write, not even his name. Daddy Alvers was an illiterate waste of space, whereas Erik hadn't even grown up speaking English and he could spell words like 'systolic' and 'cardiographer'.

Lance felt jittery as hell; he didn't know whether to stand up or sit down, whether to babble uncontrollably or clam up. He was scared about Pietro, of course. And at the back of his mind, he was playing with the possibility that Pietro actually did have feelings for him. On top of that was the positively obese guilt that he felt for almost enjoying this opportunity to get closer to Erik. He imagined how Erik's embrace would feel; there was a lot of power in those long, graceful arms. No, Lance didn't want to have these weird thoughts. Whether it was daddy envy or, gulp, homosexual leanings or even a twisted mixture of both, it was definitely inappropriate.

He wouldn't go upstairs just yet. Erik would probably appreciate being left alone right now. Lance thought the best thing to do was to stay in the house, let the doctor in, and hang around in case Erik needed him.

For a while he paced around the entrance hall, looking but not really looking at his surroundings. There were a few coats hung up on straight metal pegs by the door. A tweed jacket, a heavy wool coat and an immaculate grey linen suit jacket. Without thinking, Lance inhaled the scent from it – an almost absent herbal aroma, something fresh and green. That smell made him feel safe somehow, so different from the smoke-stained greasy aroma of his foster dad.

Whoa. He had to get a grip. He was sniffing a man's jacket, like some sentimental housewife on a laundry detergent commercial!

Shocked by his behaviour, he backed into the living room. He liked the ambience of this room; the dark wood furniture, the stacks of books, the chessboard and the black coffee cups. There was absolutely no clutter, and it was not until then that Lance noticed two framed photos at the corner of the fireplace, turned sideways so that they were hardly visible. Stepping carefully to avoid making the floorboards creak, Lance moved towards the fireplace to examine the photographs. One was the picture of Pietro's mother that Lance had seen on his first visit. He could understand why Erik wanted to keep that private. Quite forgetting himself, Lance turned the other frame around, intrigued.

What a picture to keep hidden! There was a younger Erik, whose dark hair was peppered with first greys. He was lying on a long leather couch, apparently asleep. On first glance, this was all the photograph was of. But when Lance looked closely, he could see a tiny bundle on Erik's chest that was stretching a miniscule starfish-like hand out towards whoever was taking the picture.

Although Lance knew next to nothing about babies, he understood that this one was significantly smaller than it should be. It must have been Pietro, for as far as Lance knew, Erik had no other children. Yes, if Lance really squinted, he could see a tuft of white hair sticking up from the baby's head.

He felt slightly guilty to be looking at this picture, as if he was imposing on something very private. It was such a tender picture that Lance couldn't bear to look at it. He wanted to be held like that. He wanted to take this photograph to Pietro and thrust it under his nose, showing him just how fucking loved he was.

Because if Pietro really didn't know that Erik cared for him, all he had to do was look at this picture and realise just what kind of father he could have.

Pietro had once said to Lance that Erik didn't have one photograph of him, not one. He had no idea that the photograph Lance was holding even existed. The photo was obviously very personal to Erik. How would Pietro feel that Erik had kept it for all these years?

Perhaps the picture was so important to Erik because of who had taken it. Looking at it would transport him back to the days when his wife was there. He didn't think that Erik would be sentimental about Pietro as a baby; in fact, the baby looked way too sick for anybody to look at the photo and not feel uneasy. Maybe Erik liked the photograph because the baby survived, and Pietro had grown into a super-speed genius. Also, looking at the picture made Lance understand why Erik was so preoccupied with Pietro's health.

Lance put the picture back carefully, lightly tracing a line of dust along the edges of the photo frame with a distracted fingertip. He wondered whether he should call Todd and tell him that he may not be coming home, but he wasn't sure how the conversation should go. 'Hey Todd, Pietro's really sick so I'm going to stay here and help Erik' was sure to translate as 'Pietro's sick but I don't really care, I'm just here to take advantage of his vulnerable father'. Todd did not take Lance's relationship with Erik seriously; that is to say, he had covered a page of Lance's chemistry book in pornographic doodles in which one stick man had long hair and the other was wearing a weird, thumb-like helmet.

Lance stood there for a moment, thumbs hooked in belt-loops, rocking back and forth on his heels hopelessly. 'What if I did?' echoed in his mind with every rock of his heels until he began to hypnotise himself.

…

When the doctor arrived, Lance was sent to make coffee. He busied himself for a few minutes clanking various cups around in Erik's pristine kitchen and deciding whether to use the coffee machine, instant coffee or swanky Arabian blend in a cafetiere. Since he didn't really know what a cafetiere was, he finally opted for instant coffee.

He also had to fetch a jug of iced water. Luckily, Pietro had come to very quickly and did not seem any sicker than he had been. He was probably up to his old pranks already, telling the doctor that he didn't have any kidneys or that he suspected pregnancy. Lance remembered, with a faint grin, the ear-bashing they got from the school when Pietro led the school nurse to believe that he had a rare tropical parasite called a Prankazoa which could only be cured by regular alcoholic beverages. Lance would never forget the look on the Principal's face when he saw Pietro drinking a pint of 'medicinal' lager, or, unfortunately, the look on the nurse's face when the poor woman was promptly sacked.

Man, they'd had some fun times together. What if that all changed, just because he was stupid enough to bring up the love stuff?

Once he had made the coffee and plonked some ice into a jug of water, he found a circular silver tray to put the drinks on. Then he began his journey upstairs, concentrating doggedly on not dropping the tray on Erik's utterly flawless cream carpet. He paused outside the bedroom door, placing the tray on the ground carefully. He rapped out an uncertain knock that sounded as if it was punctuated by a question mark.

"Enter," snapped a bored voice, Pietro's bored voice in fact.

So Lance did. He propped the door open with a grubby-sneaker clad foot and carried the tray in, placing it ceremoniously on top of a black chest of drawers.

"Thank you," nodded Erik.

"Uh, good evening," Lance said to the doctor, who had a bushy white beard and a bald shiny head. The doctor smiled at him, peering over his round glasses. He resembled an off-duty Santa.

"Hey kid," Lance said to Pietro, who was wired up to a portable monitor that gave out a series of low-pitched bloops. It appeared to be some kind of exclusive mutant doctor's machine, as the green lettering on the screen said 'MUTATION HOMEOSTASIS', whatever that was.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I had the best power nap ever. I tell you what, Lance, you've gotta try fainting some time."

Pietro didn't seem to notice the cold, stern look that Erik was giving him.

"Really, I feel amazing, so healthy!"

Erik muttered something in Polish to Pietro, which almost certainly meant 'calm down.'

"Mmhm!" hummed the doctor, removing a large needle from Pietro's arm. Pietro didn't even flinch, although Lance, who was scared of needles, did. "Thank you for being so co-operative, Mr Maximoff. Uh…" He looked up at Erik, who was still fixing Pietro with that hawk-like glare. "If we could go downstairs and collate this data, Mr Lensherr?

"Yes, of course," said Erik coolly. His sharp eyes fell on Lance, who tingled with something in between anticipation and fear. Lance didn't like feeling that way every time Erik looked at him, but he felt that he needed every last drop of the sensation it produced.

It seemed strange that the doctor had removed Erik to discuss Pietro's health. Why didn't he share it with Pietro directly? Lance's stomach fluttered with dread.

He turned to Pietro, noticing the contrast of those sea-bright blue eyes in an almost transparently pale face. "So do you… Do you feel okay?"

"Don't know what okay is anymore," muttered Pietro. "One minute I run a fever, then I'm fine, then I'm too weak to sit up, then I could run a marathon, then I fucking faint and I feel amazing, but now… Now… Fuck it; I'm sick of being sick and staying here and being treated like I'm on my goddamn deathbed and not getting any better and you know what, I'm starting to get just a little fucking scared -"

"I get it," Lance said, in such a soft, earnest way that Pietro couldn't doubt that he did. "But you won't get any better if you start freaking out."

Pietro made a half-sigh, half-grunt. "It's… It's my father who freaks me out. He acts like I'm made of glass, like he's just waiting for me to shatter."

Lance bit his lip. "He's just worried about you, man. Parents do that." 'Probably', he added mentally.

"It's always been like this," Pietro scowled, tossing away the bedsheet in annoyance. "He walks about with that damn stethoscope, inspecting me for signs that I might drop dead. Know what, Lance? He makes me sick. He makes me sick! It's him."

Anticipating an episode, Lance fished an ice-cube out of the jug and threw it skilfully down Pietro's pyjama top.

"Calm the fuck down," he warned Pietro, who yelped in surprise. "Now listen."

Lance sat down on the edge of the bed, looking straight into Pietro's majorly pissed off and minorly bewildered face.

"When I hear you bitching and whining about your dad, it makes me fucking burn up inside. Before I met him, I had the impression that he was some cold, evil dictator. But you know what? He's a good man. He's a kind man. He makes me feel like he fucking cares about me – who the hell else has done that? And then I see him looking after you and I get so damn jealous because… because I never had that, and because you don't see it." Lance trembled with measured rage, and stared down at the now glacially silent Pietro. "I saw a photo of you and him together…" he began, softening.

Pietro's eyes narrowed distrustfully. "You can't have. He doesn't keep any, because –" He swallowed the sentence that ended 'because Wanda's in all of them'.

"No, I saw it," insisted Lance. "So he must keep at least one."

"Don't fuck with me for the sake of your crush on my father," growled Pietro. "Don't fuck with you. I don't believe you." 'I won't believe you,' he added mentally.

"Pietro, I saw it," Lance repeated. "I shouldn't have seen it, but I was curious. It was dusty and he'd turned the frame around."

Still, Pietro refused to let himself believe it. Whatever Lance said, it didn't change anything that had happened. How could he ever explain to Lance why he and his father couldn't love each other?

"I can't understand why you're telling me this," Pietro murmured. "So what if he keeps a picture of us? The fact that he's turned it around speaks volumes."

"Let me tell you about it," Lance probed, his soft eyes coaxing Pietro to listen. "And one day, maybe you'll look at the picture and feel… I dunno… feel something that you can't seem to feel right now."

Pietro's heart fluttered in a way that had nothing to do with palpitations. Oh god, he just wanted to believe everything that Lance said.

His rare silence allowed Lance to continue. "It was when you were very little. Tiny, in fact. A baby."

"Lance," Pietro interjected, wary of hearing anymore. He was terrified that Lance knew; that Lance had seen a picture of _her._

"Really, you looked smaller than a newborn," Lance carried on, lost in thought now. "So little. I saw your white hair. You looked pale and sick. And he…"

Pietro swallowed a sob. Why? Why was Lance doing this to him?

"He was sleeping on the couch, holding you. Pietro… I… I nearly fucking cried when I saw that picture."

"There was nobody else in the picture?" wavered Pietro.

Lance frowned, oblivious that there had been another baby. "No, I guess your mom was taking the photo."

"What are you trying to prove with this?" Pietro felt the telltale swell of tears, but he did nothing to fight them. "That he cared _once? _Even he does care now, or he ever did, it's just to keep me alive – his heir. Please Lance, you don't understand. You look at him and you see goodness and tenderness, because that's the father you want to have."

And now, Lance was almost crying himself with sheer frustration. "He is the father I want to have! But he's your father, not mine. Pietro, please, let me get that photo and show it to you. Or talk to him."

"No, Lance," Pietro said resolutely. "I can't change things now, and neither can he. I really don't want to talk about this with you anymore."

Lance leaned in, and put a warm hand on Pietro's arm. The touch went straight to Pietro's heart, leaving him wordless.

"I don't like to see you cry. I'm only trying to…" he seemed to change his mind about what he was going to say. "No. I'm just sorry I brought it up. That's twice today I've upset you. I need to go away and think. I'm pretty churned up inside."

And he was. He really was. He didn't know what he wanted, or if he did, he didn't know why he wanted it.

Pietro raised himself up onto one elbow shakily, scowling at the ever-blooping machine. Why was all this happening when he was so weak? If he was well, he'd physically pull Lance away from the dangerous clutches of his father. If he was well, he'd risk a kiss now – he'd _show _Lance that he meant it. If he gave Lance enough love, maybe Lance would stop idolising Erik. Or maybe he should look at that damn photo and try a bit harder with his father; maybe then Erik would stop trying to 'adopt' Lance.

"Well you're messed up, I'm messed up, and god knows my old man's messed up," he said drily, earning a weak smile from Lance.

The machine changed momentarily from a bloop to a bleep-bleep, and Pietro and Lance stared at it quizzically.

"Wonder if that's good or bad," mused Pietro. "Can you flatline on these things?"

He was expecting to lighten the mood, but Lance sucked on his lips anxiously, eyeing Pietro with caution like he might spontaneously combust.

"I'd make a pretty corpse, wouldn't I?" Pietro smirked, now intent on making Lance uncomfortable. Making a joke of his illness made him feel better, and seeing Lance's horrified reaction satisfied his dark heart. "Bury me in pale blue, I think that'll be the most becoming when my skin goes deathly -"

"I'll fucking bury you alive right now if you don't shut your mouth," warned Lance.

And then, a very rare thing happened. "I'm sorry," Pietro replied. "I'm being an asshole, I know. It's just I've spent my whole life knowing my mutation will kill me one day, just waiting to get sick enough. I don't think that's happening now. But I know, and my father knows, that it's going to get me eventually."

His piercing honesty shocked Lance.

"I nearly died when I was born," Pietro continued. "That's why I looked so freakish and sick in the photo you saw."

"Were you premature?"

"No, I was the runt, I didn't get the nutrients that my twin-" He stopped dead, blue eyes widening like a sudden firework explosion. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuck.

"What? You're a twin?"

Pietro clutched at the sheets nervously, breathing deeply to stop the machine from revealing his anxiety. "I was a twin."

Well, that was technically true. He certainly wasn't a twin now, because she wasn't there, alive or not.

"But that's not something I can talk about," he said with finality despite Lance's obvious desire to find out more. "Anyway, where was I? Yeah, I nearly died when I was born, and again when my mutation emerged -"

"Why didn't you tell me your twin died?" interrupted Lance. He felt a twinge between his ribs for his mother, wanting desperately to share his grief.

Pietro winced. Holy crap, he had gone too far now. There were only two ways out of this now: lie, or tell the truth. Either way, there would be consequences. And he really, really wanted to tell somebody about Wanda – the words had been stagnating inside him now that they almost felt like illness itself.

"Lance, I want to tell you what happened. But you've got to absolutely promise not to open your big stupid mouth and repeat what I said. Do not let on to my father that you know. I promise you, he will kill me and then he will kill you if this gets out."

"I won't tell," breathed Lance. "I only want to understand."

This made Pietro smile darkly. "Oh, you'll understand…"

Lance nodded, waiting expectantly for the truth. However, now that Pietro finally had the chance to tell someone, it was typical that the words clung to the roof of his mouth like peanut butter.

"I had a twin," Pietro began calmly, still wary of making the machine go haywire. "Her name was Wanda. She had black hair." He sighed, and let the story run away with him. "Wanda was always, always stronger than me – right from when she was in the womb hogging the nutrients. She never got sick. She was a really bright kid. Sparky. Funny. She always stuck up for me, because loath as I am to admit it, I was wimpy snot-nosed kid."

"What happened to her?" prompted Lance.

Pietro passed his hands over his face, gaining a new pallor that had nothing to do with his illness.

"This bit is hard. I'm tired and I don't know if I'm going to make sense. Well… Our powers began emerging when we were six, just after mother died. Mine were pretty instant – as in suddenly I could run. But they were nothing compared to what Wanda could do. Lance, I'm not joking, at seven she could have floored some of those X-Dweebs in one shot. My father thought she was amazing. But soon…"

He tailed off, closing his eyes. Lance rose in alarm that he had fainted again, but Pietro held up a hand and continued.

"Soon she lost control of her powers, and they were destructive. She was so angry at the world already for taking our mother, and now she had a gift that she couldn't control. Imagine, a little kid trying to understand what was happening to her. I remember one day she saw a bluebird, and she pointed to show me and this blue bolt just shot out of her fingers, killing the poor bird instantly. She didn't mean to. I know she didn't. She cried, and more of those bolt things came out of her and burnt the grass. I wanted to hug her but I was scared she might hurt me by mistake."

Now the words were rolling easily off his tongue, and even as he spoke them, he felt release. He didn't look at Lance's face, because he knew that Lance's eyes would show that warm concern that would make the years of repressed tears burst free.

"She had to stop going to school. She had to stop everything, because everywhere she went she would cause damage. And it made her angry and because she was angry, she got more destructive. My father gave her injections that made her sleepy – I didn't know he was sedating her. He brought in doctors, healers; anybody who he thought would help her. There was an old lady who I think was some kind of witch. She taught Wanda to channel her energy, taught her what I can only assume were spells. It was working. I remember our seventh birthday, and she was finally allowed out of the house on a trip to the fairground. That's the most perfect day I can remember. No, that's the only perfect day I can remember – me, Wanda, and my father, and we were happy. We hadn't been happy for a long time. It really seemed that things were going to turn out right. Wanda was using her powers for good, and I had my sister back. My sister -"

Pietro choked on the word for a moment, swallowing hard. Not knowing what to say or do, Lance reached over and rubbed his shoulder.

"My father still had doubts, but I begged him and begged him to let her go back to school with me. She had been fine with the real world at the fairground. I didn't see why school would be any different. Eventually, he caved and let her go back to school. He said she would catch up easily as she was academic. Well, she did, but they put her back two grades as she had missed so much school. She was in a class of stupid babies, and the teacher patronised her. She tried so hard to put up with it. When she came home, she used to sit and stare at the wall with her fists clenched so that no blue bolts came out. She stopped talking to me, because she hated me for making her go back and endure that crap. Now I think she was worried she would get angry and hurt me. Now I see how depressed she was."

He paused again, staring hard at the monitor, letting the green wiggles hypnotise him back into calm.

"Father gave her more complicated books to read, which helped. The old witch taught her to make rainbows and fireworks with her hands. She loved that. I loved that. I started to play with her again – dumb kids games, pranks, whatever. What she really loved was watching me run. You know, she's the only person that could ever slow me down. When she was happy, I was happy. It's weird with twins; your souls are kind of knit together. I honestly thought that if I stayed happy and pleased her the way a naïve little kid could, then she would never be angry again. Father and I… We were so scared of her changing. Sometimes he would give her a tablet in the morning before she went to school so she could cope. Drugs again!"

Still, he couldn't look at Lance. He didn't even feel the hand on his shoulder, he was locked in the past now.

"That's how it went for a year. Wanda was okay, but she was always on the brink of an outburst. There was one day, when I was running and running, pushing myself to the limit in the park. She tried to make me stop, but I couldn't. It's like my legs took over. So I was running laps round and round the park, faster than ever, getting more and more scared. I didn't stop until I passed out, sick with dehydration and fatigue. After that, she got bad again…" Pietro let his vocabulary decline. He honestly felt eight years old again. Everything was so raw. These memories were untapped, he had buried them for years.

"She saw that the world had given her powers that would hurt others and me powers that would hurt me. She cried, begging my father to take it away from us. He couldn't listen – he thought our mutant powers were so fucking perfect, he didn't realise that they would… Well, anyway. Things fell apart quickly. Wanda was working with the old witch, and I think her powers evolved, I really think it was a mistake, but she caused an explosion and almost killed the old lady. After that, she backed off, and Wanda had nothing to help her except my father's sedation. Imagine an eight year old kid maxed out on tranquilisers… She went to school like a zombie. I think one day, it just stopped working. And that day, I was walking down the corridor and there was this blue flash from her classroom. Screams. I opened the door, and she was crouched in the corner with her hands over her head, crying. The other kids were yelling "she did it!" The teacher was frozen dead on the floor."

He drew a breath, a deep breath, allowing the image that had haunted his nightmares to play out in full.

"I wanted to run away with her before she got caught, but she couldn't move. The principal came in with a police officer, who lifted her by force. We went to an office somewhere and our father was there. I'll never forget how he looked at Wanda. It was the only time I ever saw him scared. Later that day he took her to Xavier. I think he thought that Baldy could take her in and make her better like all his other pampered X-Men. But Xavier said no. Wanda told me that he looked inside her mind. Why the hell couldn't he help a scared child? It wasn't her fault, it wasn't her fault!"

Lance felt sick.

"I was a stupid kid, and I thought Wanda would go to jail. I made her pack her bags so we could run away together. There was a mutant doctor in the house, and we could hear father saying "What can I do with this child?" Wanda freaked out and burnt a hole in the wall. She was only scared. The mutant doctor held her down and gave her a shot to suppress her powers, but it didn't work. The doctor said she was too dangerous. Father threw him out. He sat there for a long time with his face in his hands. Then he told us to get in the car, because we were running away together. I loved him so much at that moment. He drove really fast. We didn't know where he was going, but we knew everything was going to be okay now. It had to be. Well, eventually he pulled up outside this big, old looking building, and we thought it might be some kind of hotel. He got out of the car, and opened the door on Wanda's side. I tried to get out with her, but he locked me in. These men were coming out of the building. Father had his hands on Wanda's shoulders so she couldn't get back in the car. The men came and grabbed her, and she was screaming, and father said and did nothing, he didn't even watch. He got back in the car and drove me home."

"What happened to her?"

Pietro's eyes burned with anger. "The bastard left her in a psychiatric institute. A crazy house. How could he leave an eight year old kid, his _daughter_, in a place like that?"

"Maybe he thought she'd be safe," offered Lance.

"That's what he said," sniffed Pietro bitterly. "But only because of the drugs and the straitjacket. I could have helped her. She'd never have hurt me. Or father. I'll never understand why he gave up on her like that."

Lance tried to stay neutral as he took it all in. "Did you… Do you visit her?"

"Never saw her again," Pietro smiled wanly. "I doubt he has anything to do with her, either. It's disgusting. He preaches about saving mutants, but look what he did to his own mutant child. He abandoned her!"

Just as Lance had wanted to know, he suddenly wanted to retract the information. What a fucked up story. A child who was a murderer. A father who locked her up in a crazy house. Although, what else could he do? It wasn't like he hadn't tried to help her. Xavier wouldn't take her. Did Pietro really think that he, his father and Wanda could have gone on the run?

But then… But then, Erik had helped so many mutants, just like he was helping Lance. Why didn't he help Wanda to channel her energy? Why didn't he train her and encourage her to feel good about her powers? Why didn't he see that his little girl needed… love?

His opinion of Erik was swerving and skidding all over the place now. Just a while ago he had been sniffing that man's jacket, tearing up at a photo of him and his baby, wishing that Erik was his own father. Now he was struggling to see that man, imagining him watching coldly as his daughter was carried away through those gates. Did Erik fight so hard for mutants now because he had failed his own child?

No, Lance could see what a headfuck this must be for Pietro, and indeed, for Erik. The logical side said that he was right, that she was dangerous and there was nowhere safe for her to go. But empathy made it quite impossible to believe that this was the best thing to do for Wanda.

"I don't know what to say," Lance finally heard himself saying.

"There's nothing to say."

"Just… I'm sorry, man. It's awful, really awful."

"My sister…"

"I know."

For a moment, even the machine was silent.

"Do you want me to… like… hug you?"

Pietro nodded silently, and shifted in the bed so that Lance could lie next to him. He lay his head on Lance's warm, broad chest, smelling that distinctive safe and musky odour. Tentatively, Lance wrapped an arm around him. Silvery hair tickled his nose. In time, he felt Pietro's body shake with sobs and underneath Pietro's face; he could feel his chest getting damp.

The poor kid felt so fragile in his arms, almost as if Lance was comforting the eight year old Pietro who had just lost his sister. Lance did nothing to stop the tears. He knew, only too well, what it was like to hold them in. What it was like to want somebody to hold you when you finally cried.


End file.
